Spore Franchise Launches First Game on Facebook Platform Spore Islands Now Available for Play in Open Beta

EMERYVILLE, Calif., Nov 05, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Maxis(TM), an Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) studio, today announced they have taken their renowned integration of social connectivity to the next level with a fun and original game application built on Facebook(R) Platform, Spore(TM) Islands. Now available, Spore Islands invites Facebook users to experience the Spore universe in a new way by competing against each other in the ultimate survival of the fittest game.

"In Spore Islands, players get to invite friends in their social web to play on their island, so creating this game exclusively for Facebook was a natural choice for us since they are the largest and most popular social platform for games," stated Caryl Shaw, Senior Producer, Spore Islands. "What sets Spore Islands apart from other social games is that it offers a different kind of social interactivity where a player's gameplay experience is directly affected by the choices and decisions their friends make. It's an ongoing game, so player's creatures and islands will be active at all times, whether the player is logged into Facebook or not." "Games are one of the most popular activities on Facebook, with more than 100 million unique active users in the top 10 games alone. We are excited to see Spore Islands as one of the latest games on Facebook for our 300 million users to connect, share and play with friends," said Facebook Platform Manager Gareth Davis.

Spore Islands, a simulation game set in a vibrant, playful 2D world, is one of the first games developed and published by Electronic Arts Inc. on Facebook Platform and based on an established franchise. Focused on player-to-player interaction, users choose their own island to live on, create creatures and evolve them, invite friends to live on their island, and send their own creatures to friends' islands, all in a quest to dominate as many islands as possible. In Spore Islands, much like in other Spore games, parts matter.

Throughout the game, players can earn and purchase DNA points that they can use to modify their creature's stats or customize their creature's appearance with fun accessories such as hats, animations, holiday-themed items, and more.

Players' progress is tracked on both Global and a Friends-only leaderboards, which can be viewed by players and their friends, upping the ante in the race to the top of the food chain.

Spore Islands can be played at: http://apps.facebook.com/sporeislands.

To learn more about the Spore franchise, please visit www.spore.com. For screenshots or press materials about the Spore franchise, please visit http://info.ea.com.

About Spore Spore, available for PC and Mac(R), gives players their own personal universe in a box. Create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore a universe filled with creations made by other gamers.

Spore gives players a wealth of creative tools to customize nearly every aspect of their universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even spaceships. Spore Galactic Adventures allows players to beam down to planets for the first time and play, create and share missions with friends online. Available now, Spore Hero, exclusive to the Wii(TM) and Spore Hero Arena for the Nintendo DS(TM), catapult players into the role of a fully-customized hero creature fighting to save its planet.

About Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is a leading global interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the Company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, wireless devices and the Internet.

Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTS(TM), EA(TM), EA Mobile(TM) and POGO(TM). In fiscal 2009, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $4.2 billion and had 31 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.

EA, EA SPORTS, EA Mobile, POGO, Maxis, and Spore are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Nintendo DS and Wii are trademarks of Nintendo. All other trademarks are the property of their respective licensors. Mac is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

Facebook(R) is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6092529&lang=en SOURCE: Electronic Arts Inc.

CONTACT: Electronic Arts Nikki Flynn, 510-428-4323 [e-mail] or Electronic Arts Alexis Mervin McDowel, 650-628-7703 [e-mail] Copyright Business Wire 2009 -0- KEYWORD: United States

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